Singers and other vocalists who take the study of the voice with any degree of seriousness, readily recognize three relatively important aspects of voice training: (1) The ability to recognize the written note; (2) the ability to associate the written note with an appropriate musical tone; and (3) the ability to vocally produce a musical tone. This first aspect of voice training requires the student to memorize the notes as they appear on a musical staff. Materials required for learning this first aspect of voice training are minimal: At most, a textbook.
With respect to the latter two of the three above-mentioned aspects, some form of feedback must be provided in order to direct the student's training. For example, a student can be taught to associate the written note with appropriate tones using a musical instrument and the ability to operate that instrument. Similarly, the third above-mentioned aspect of voice training is aided when the student is provided with some form of apparatus that will produce the tone in question, inviting the student to attempt to match the pitch of the musical tone with his or her own voice. Thus, a musical instrument of one form or another and, in the event the student has insufficient knowledge to operate the musical instrument, an instructor is required in order to provide the student with appropriate training. Typically, the student's progress is hastened by having the student listen to a musical tone and then attempting to vocally reproduce the tone in pitch. An instructor reinforces the student's attempts by guiding the student to vary the pitch to match the tone.
There are many devices on the market today available to produce tones to aid the student. Such devices include the various musical instruments (i.e., piano, stringed instruments, pitch pipes and the like) and even some electronic devices. Examples of these latter may be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,888,849, 3,562,934 and 3,886,838.
In addition, this last-mentioned feature of voice training, pitch recognition (i.e., the ability to reproduce and match the pitch of an aural tone), is a sometimes difficult hurdle encountered by voice students in their early stages of training. This aspect of training requires generation of a musical tone having a particular pitch and, by listening to the tone, the student tries to vocally match the tone's pitch. Unless the student is gifted with absolute pitch, it is usually difficult for the student in the early stages of training to accurately match the pitch of the musical tone without some form of guidance. This is due to the fact that the aural tones are perceived differently by the one producing the tones. Thus, guidance in the form of an instructor who directs the student as to how to move his or her voice (i.e., to raise or lower the reproduced pitch) to match the generated musical tone is needed. In absence of such an instructor, the student is left without satisfactory means of practicing pitch recognition on his or her own.
One method heretofore used to determine the pitch of an aural tone has been to apply the aural tone (in the form of an electrical signal) to the beam-deflecting circuits of a cathode ray display tube. A signal of known frequency is also applied to the beam-deflecting circuits of the display tube. By viewing the pattern produced on the display tube a determination can be made as to the frequency content (pitch) of the aural tone. An example of this method can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 2,888,849.
Several problems are attendant with this method, however. The apparatus required to implement the method is costly, complex and cumbersome. More importantly, however, one must be trained to read the figures generated on the display to even come close to determining the information conveyed.
It can be seen, therefore, that a need exists for apparatus that provides the student with positive and accurate feedback for both supervised and unsupervised voice training.